US Political Discussion: Biden/Harris Edition (Rules in OP)

[Drew]

That's absolutely false, I have a state LTC and a Federal collectors license. This is the only case where you can but it has to be considered a Curio & Relic (over 50 years old and not on the NFA list) All rifles considered assault rifles are on the NFA list. You guys with your misinformation remind me of The View, maybe start up a white liberal male version? until then, do some research and educate yourselves on the subject. I believe we should have background checks across the board, and mental health screenings. Don't forget it's the FBI that are giving these people the go ahead to buy a firearm.

Mass resident, right? We have significantly more restrictive gun control than most states. It's not like the reporter in the Vermont newspaper (and a well respected one within the state) made up his experience there.

But, I agree, if we strengthened gun control nationally to the level it is in Massachusetts, that'd be a very good first step.

This figure is underreported though, as it excludes the multiple semi-automatic (and fully automatic) rifles used in the 2017 Las Vegas Strip massacre – the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, killing 58 and wounding 546.

Check me if I'm wrong, but the Las Vegas shooting was also semi-automatic, but modified semi-automatics with bump stocks, correct?

 

[RevDrucifer]

Check me if I'm wrong, but the Las Vegas shooting was also semi-automatic, but modified semi-automatics with bump stocks, correct?

Yeah, that asshole had an armory of guns….and this goes to show the languages used around them and how they can be mixed up. The Wiki bit below is a list of the guns the Vegas shooter had, while the quote I referenced above mentions automatic weapons, there are no automatic weapons listed below.

fourteen AR-15 rifles (some of which were equipped with bump stocks and twelve of which had 100-round magazines), eight AR-10-type rifles, a bolt-action rifle, and a revolver. -Wiki

I remember when Trump banned bump stocks, I didn’t know a single gun owner who was upset by it. From all accounts in my personal life, they were essentially akin to putting a gun in a paint can mixer and holding the trigger down. They’d cause the gun to jerk around that *could* potentially cause it to fire faster or not, but they absolutely removed that much more ability to aim precisely due to the jerking around. So really, just making a semi-auto more effective at shooting a crowd of people where aiming isn’t a priority.

Bottom line, if someone wants to kill a lot of people really fast, a gun, any gun but a fucking musket, is the most efficient weapon unless they’re playing with bio-chemicals.

 

[StevenC]

But like, why is the second amendment so important*?

(* so important that it was the second thing they remembered to add)

 

[zappatton2]

As an outsider looking in, the concept of lethal, long-range weapon ownership as a "right" makes nothing even close to sense, especially in the face of so many free, liberal democracies with codified civil rights and high standards of living, who also maintain rational gun control policies.

But glob help you if you're a woman expecting the right self-determination over your own body and reproductive capacity. Unless there's a massive generational shift in the American zeitgeist, this tragedy is just going to keep repeating itself. My hope is that young Americans are shifting away from this cultural illness, but in an age of increasing disinformation and radicalization, who can know?

 

[tedtan]

But like, why is the second amendment so important*?

(* so important that it was the second thing they remembered to add)

It doesn’t really matter at this point. From a practical perspective, the US Senate is not likely to pass any significant changes to existing gun laws, but even if they did, or Biden issued executive orders, they would be challenged legally and I don’t see the current sitting US Supreme Court reversing its interpretation of the second amendment.

What that means is that in order to change the current interpretation of the second amendment, we need to amend the constitution to make that change. To do that, we need to convince 2/3 of the US House, plus 2/3 of the US Senate, plus 3/4 of the individual States’ legislatures (all but Nebraska have two houses, so 3/4 of each house), plus 3/4 of the States’ governors. And that’s simply too high a bar to pass at this point in time.

 

[lost_horizon]

It doesn’t really matter at this point. From a practical perspective, the US Senate is not likely to pass any significant changes to existing gun laws, but even if they did, or Biden issued executive orders, they would be challenged legally and I don’t see the current sitting US Supreme Court reversing its interpretation of the second amendment.

What that means is that in order to change the current interpretation of the second amendment, we need to amend the constitution to make that change. To do that, we need to convince 2/3 of the US House, plus 2/3 of the US Senate, plus 3/4 of the individual States’ legislatures (all but Nebraska have two houses, so 3/4 of each house), plus 3/4 of the States’ governors. And that’s simply too high a bar to pass at this point in time.

This or the states could pass laws themselves. America is a constitutional republic. Let the states own their own gun laws and enforce them. New York has different laws to California to Texas.

Yet they all had mass shootings. The laws aren't the divider here. It is the policing of those laws. Useless to have a law if it is not enforced or carried out correctly. There are armed guards at 50% of all hospitals, pharmacies and banks but not schools or campuses? People and NGOs campaigned to NOT have armed guards at schools.

Close your eyes and imagine that tomorrow that the 2nd amendment is overturned tomorrow. What does the practical enforcement of that law look like? Forcibly taking all the firearms from the 99.99% majority of legal, sane and licenced individuals? Or can you have laws that are both able to reward safe firearm owners and hinder unhinged or illegal firearms.

This issue is not a priority there is the ATF an entire government department focused on this, where are they? I suppose like the head of homeland security who has let in 2.5 million people in 16 months, asleep at the wheel, ideologically opposed to enforcing their role and unaccountable.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

So long as free movement between states exists (and it should) the defacto national gun law is that of the most lenient state or municipality.

Which means liberal havens like NYC or SanFran can pass extremely restrictive control measures (relatively of course), but it can easily be bypassed by crossing state and county lines.

While some see that as gun control "not working", it also shows the need for a more stringent federal standard too. It cuts both ways.

So long as we shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from civil and legal penalties, and don't provide comprehensive mental health care for the populous at large, the only option is to restrict proliferation. Which is my biggest gripe with the GOP/American Right, if they want guns to be available they need to support efforts to curb the other half of the equation.

 

[mbardu]

This or the states could pass laws themselves. America is a constitutional republic. Let the states own their own gun laws and enforce them. New York has different laws to California to Texas.

Yet they all had mass shootings. The laws aren't the divider here. It is the policing of those laws. Useless to have a law if it is not enforced or carried out correctly. There are armed guards at 50% of all hospitals, pharmacies and banks but not schools or campuses? People and NGOs campaigned to NOT have armed guards at schools.

Close your eyes and imagine that tomorrow that the 2nd amendment is overturned tomorrow. What does the practical enforcement of that law look like? Forcibly taking all the firearms from the 99.99% majority of legal, sane and licenced individuals? Or can you have laws that are both able to reward safe firearm owners and hinder unhinged or illegal firearms.

This issue is not a priority there is the ATF an entire government department focused on this, where are they? I suppose like the head of homeland security who has let in 2.5 million people in 16 months, asleep at the wheel, ideologically opposed to enforcing their role and unaccountable.

Aaaaah, again the states rights argument.
I like how people imagine people with guns just can't (and don't for a lot of those shootings) cross jurisdictions' lines in order to go shoot people somewhere else.
Local laws do nothing against guns in the US.

Although as a whole, I'll at least agree it's not only a guns issue.
There are a few other countries in the world with high gun ownership and different outcomes.
It's just that in America, you combine that with an absolute dystopian hellhole of a society where the newer generations are bred on violence, hyper-polarized, left with basically no hope for the future, no support systems or social safety nets, you name it... At some point some people are bound to go coocoo and then those people easily have the arsenal at their disposal to vent their violent urges.

Other countries have guns? Sure, but they usually have a much safer and less aggressive society.
Other countries as shitty as the US's society? Well that's a tough one in the civilized world, but if it were the case, nowhere has as easy an access to mass-killing machines.

Stuff like this is heartbreaking:

 

[lost_horizon]

So long as free movement between states exists (and it should) the defacto national gun law is that of the most lenient state or municipality.

Which means liberal havens like NYC or SanFran can pass extremely restrictive control measures (relatively of course), but it can easily be bypassed by crossing state and county lines.

While some see that as gun control "not working", it also shows the need for a more stringent federal standard too. It cuts both ways.

So long as we shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from civil and legal penalties, and don't provide comprehensive mental health care for the populous at large, the only option is to restrict proliferation. Which is my biggest gripe with the GOP/American Right, if they want guns to be available they need to support efforts to curb the other half of the equation.

Thats cool and all but the Buffalo shooter bought it in New York. I would need some evidence it was from out of state.

 

[mbardu]

So long as we shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from civil and legal penalties, and don't provide comprehensive mental health care for the populous at large, the only option is to restrict proliferation. Which is my biggest gripe with the GOP/American Right, if they want guns to be available they need to support efforts to curb the other half of the equation.

And please, by "mental health", can we not just do the "let's just medicate people" route .

The large LARGE majority of "mental health issue" in this shit country would be solved with the same usual suspects. Just give at least a semblance of hope and meaning to people ie do basic stuff like education, healthcare and actually livable wages. I bet people most people would think of other things than shooting up their neighbors if they were living an at least somewhat happy life.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Thats cool and all but the Buffalo shooter bought it in New York. I would need some evidence it was from out of state.

The fact that a vocal white supremacist who espoused violent rhetoric and engaged in confrontational behaviors was able to buy a gun in what some think is a difficult area to buy one isn't the salient point you think it is.

 

[mbardu]

The fact that a vocal white supremacist who espoused violent rhetoric and engaged in confrontational behaviors was able to buy a gun in what some think is a difficult area to buy one isn't the salient point you think it is.

A salient point, it certainly is not, but just like states rights or constitutional originalism, or cherrypicked statistics, it is certainly a way to distract from the debate.

Yet they all had mass shootings. The laws aren't the divider here. It is the policing of those laws. Useless to have a law if it is not enforced or carried out correctly. There are armed guards at 50% of all hospitals, pharmacies and banks but not schools or campuses? People and NGOs campaigned to NOT have armed guards at schools.

This is so funny. The fact that having to have guards at so many places is seen as "normal" or needed, and that the answer "we should have more armed people! in places like school for example" is an actual serious answer from people really shows how the situation is fucked up beyond repair.
Same line of thinking as people normalizing bulletproof backpacks and ballistic blankets for classrooms.
The rest of the world is looking at the US and absolutely terrified . I mean, WTF

No you should not require armed guards in schools. It's not a good thing to normalize those things for kids. Just look at the above clip. This is terrible!
Also you should not escalate in an arms war because, just like the dude who got body armor and killed the security guard, people will find a way to get bigger and bigger guns.

But I guess as usual America is going to America...

 

[MaxOfMetal]

The real red herring here is that there are more armed guards (police or private security) in schools than at any previous point, yet they still don't stop school shootings.

I mean, they sometimes stop the active ones, but they rarely if ever stop them from happening in the first place.

What they are good at is funneling kids, mostly minorities, in bad home lives into the meat grinder that is the US correctional system vs. helping them.

 

[tedtan]

A salient point, it certainly is not, but just like states rights or constitutional originalism, or cherrypicked statistics, it is certainly a way to distract from the debate.



This is so funny. The fact that having to have guards at so many places is seen as "normal" or needed, and that the answer "we should have more armed people! in places like school for example" is an actual serious answer from people really shows how the situation is fucked up beyond repair.
Same line of thinking as people normalizing bulletproof backpacks and ballistic blankets for classrooms.
The rest of the world is looking at the US and absolutely terrified . I mean, WTF

No you should not require armed guards in schools. It's not a good thing to normalize those things for kids. just look at the above clip. This is terrible!
You should not escalate in an arms war because, just like the dude who got body armor and killed the security guard, people will find a way to get bigger and bigger guns.

But I guess as usual America is going to America...

The sad thing is that guns in schools is not a new thing. In my grandparents’ generation, they took guns to school, left them with the principal during the day, and used them to shoot rabbits or squirrels on the way home from school. They didn’t have much of a safety net back during the Great Depression era, either, just the possibility of WWII looming over in Europe.

Aside from people living more rural back then, what’s changed? Culture? Video games? Violent music? People losing touch with what death actually means from first hand experience as a result of being removed from the food chain by not having to raise or hunt their own meat these days?

 

[lost_horizon]

Aaaaah, again the states rights argument.
I like how people imagine people with guns just can't (and don't for a lot of those shootings) cross jurisdictions' lines in order to go shoot people somewhere else.
Local laws do nothing against guns in the US.

That's not the argument the argument is you already have a multitude of state laws and regardless of laws they haven't prevented death. The Las Vegas shooter bought 33 guns in 4 different states, what does it matter if the one from Utah or the one from California was the one that killed all those people? Isn't the purpose of laws to address the thing they were designed to address? If they could be bypassed are they even effective? Is someone can enter your state with weapons and shoot your citizens what are they doing to stop it?

The fact that a vocal white supremacist who espoused violent rhetoric and engaged in confrontational behaviors was able to buy a gun in what some think is a difficult area to buy one isn't the salient point you think it is.

I didn't bring up out of state purchase in the first place. Demand more from the people who actually allowed that to happen in their state. Is holding people accountable bad karma or something because people seem really adverse to it and will literally bring in any outside factor possible. Who passed the law? What were the effects meant to be? What was the real impact? How much did it cost?

Those damn White supremacist shootings in Southern California Church and Sacramento. Are people glad people were killed by some other race or motivation? All are bad.

Speaking of Sacramento:
"On May 3, three people — "".."" — were each charged with three counts of murder. The three others killed in the shooting are not being considered murder victims because officials say they were involved in the gun battle between rival groups"
Way to fudge the murder/gun violence figures in Cali.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

The sad thing is that guns in schools is not a new thing. In my grandparents’ generation, they took guns to school, left them with the principal during the day, and used them to shoot rabbits or squirrels on the way home from school. They didn’t have much of a safety net back during the Great Depression era, either, just the possibility of WWII over in Europe.

Aside from people living more rural back then, what’s changed? Culture? Video games? Violent music? People losing touch with what death actually means from first hand experience by as a result of being removed from the food chain by not having to raise or hunt their own meat these days?

Your grandparents probably weren't buying AR15s marketed as being part of their virility, to defend against the scary brown people that the loud internet man says are going to rape their kids and replace them with more smelly dark people.

But yeah, there are tons of societal factors, but a lot of it has to do with just how bad the outlook is for a non-insignificant amount of people in this country, who now have access to more guns than ever and being squeezed ever closer together competing for an even smaller part of the pie than ever.

The rest of the modern world has music and video games and porn and whatever the most convenient scapegoat of the day is, we're the only ones shooting each other as much.

That's not the argument the argument is you already have a multitude of state laws and regardless of laws they haven't prevented death. The Las Vegas shooter bought 33 guns in 4 different states, what does it matter if the one from Utah or the one from California was the one that killed all those people? Isn't the purpose of laws to address the thing they were designed to address? If they could be bypassed are they even effective? Is someone can enter your state with weapons and shoot your citizens what are they doing to stop it?


I didn't bring up out of state purchase in the first place. Demand more from the people who actually allowed that to happen in their state. Is holding people accountable bad karma or something because people seem really adverse to it and will literally bring in any outside factor possible. Who passed the law? What were the effects meant to be? What was the real impact? How much did it cost?

Those damn White supremacist shootings in Southern California Church and Sacramento. Are people glad people were killed by some other race or motivation? All are bad.

Speaking of Sacramento:
"On May 3, three people — "".."" — were each charged with three counts of murder. The three others killed in the shooting are not being considered murder victims because officials say they were involved in the gun battle between rival groups"
Way to fudge the murder/gun violence figures in Cali.

Listen, if you think I agree with current gun laws and their application you're wrong. They're usually light on forethought and substance.

But that's why they're ineffective, they're bad and easy to sidestep, mostly because they're made at the county and state level.

Anything at the national level is almost impossible to pass at this point, and anything that does is incredibly watered down by nonsense.

So more restrictive laws aren't inherently bad, but I'd argue we've not really tried anything of substance in more than a generation, which is the heart of the issue.

 

[mbardu]

That's not the argument the argument is you already have a multitude of state laws and regardless of laws they haven't prevented death. The Las Vegas shooter bought 33 guns in 4 different states, what does it matter if the one from Utah or the one from California was the one that killed all those people? Isn't the purpose of laws to address the thing they were designed to address? If they could be bypassed are they even effective? Is someone can enter your state with weapons and shoot your citizens what are they doing to stop it?

"This or the states could pass laws themselves"
Is literally your argument.

What we are trying to say is States making laws to that effect has 0 impact.
You even use as an example the LV shooter buying stuff from all over the place- are you trying to disprove your own argument?

If it's not done at the federal level, laws restricting gun purchases are going to have close to 0 effect because the contiguous US states are just that...contiguous.
Gun bought anywhere can kill people anywhere, that's exactly the point. So local purchasing laws (your argument) have no point.

 

[mbardu]

Your grandparents probably weren't buying AR15s marketed as being part of their virility, to defend against the scary brown people that the loud internet man says are going to rape their kids and replace them with more smelly dark people.

But yeah, there are tons of societal factors, but a lot of it has to do with just how bad the outlook is for a non-insignificant amount of people in this country, who now have access to more guns than ever and being squeezed ever closer together competing for an even smaller part of the pie than ever.

The rest of the modern world has music and video games and porn and whatever the most convenient scapegoat of the day is, we're the only ones shooting each other as much.

Yeah and the thing is those things compound into each other.
From place to place, the rest of the developed world also has its share of division, and violent culture, and internet hate, and despair of the youth etc etc.
And shit happens in other places too of course; with the much lower frequency that we know.

The US just being top tier (America number one ) in Gun Access x Despair x Hate x No care for its people; that just means we mechanically multiply those stats and we end up here.

 

[lost_horizon]

"This or the states could pass laws themselves"
Is literally your argument.

What we are trying to say is States making laws to that effect has 0 impact.
You even use as an example the LV shooter buying stuff from all over the place- are you trying to disprove your own argument?

If it's not done at the federal level, laws restricting gun purchases are going to have close to 0 effect because the contiguous US states are just that...contiguous.
Gun bought anywhere can kill people anywhere, that's exactly the point. So local purchasing laws (your argument) have no point.

No I'm not disproving my own point. I'm saying the LV shooter bought guns both in state and out of state and people seem to only focus on out of state purchases. What if all the offending guns were bought in Cali and used to kill Californians? The out of state point is moot. If he had 3 guns or 24 he still would have killed.

States can coordinate with each other. Police departments already coordinate. FBI can coordinate. There are 18,000 police jurisdictions in the united states. It is not working.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

No I'm not disproving my own point. I'm saying the LV shooter bought guns both in state and out of state and people seem to only focus on out of state purchases. What if all the offending guns were bought in Cali and used to kill Californians? The out of state point is moot. If he had 3 guns or 24 he still would have killed.

States can coordinate with each other. Police departments already coordinate. FBI can coordinate. There are 18,000 police jurisdictions in the united states. It is not working.

But that's exactly why it's not working, it's too fragmented and no one is working with each other based mostly on ideological grounds.